Our story detailed how the new policy, put in place by Chief David Brown, had caused 75 percent reduction in such reports last year. It also explained how the net effect is that about a third of Dallas’ highly touted 11 percent drop in crime last year came about because police no longer respond to the shoplifting calls and retailers are reluctant to hassle with reporting the petty thefts.

On the magazine’s crime blog, Justin Peters notes that police departments often use two strategies to cut crime: flood high-crime areas with cops or make it harder to report crimes.

“The Dallas, Texas police department chose the latter strategy last year when it announced that police officers would no longer respond in person to shoplifting incidents involving items worth $50 or less,” Peters writes.

He goes on to say that he understands that police agencies have to “make tough choices” with how they use their resources, but adds that DPD should not be allowed to “claim the resulting statistics as some huge crime-fighting victory.”

“A huge drop in crime doesn’t necessarily mean that the police are being any more effective; it could just mean crimes are being downgraded or ignored,” he writes. “As this Dallas situation shows, ‘less crime getting reported’ is not the same thing as ‘less crime.’